


would you recommend an autumn wedding

by DuendeJunior



Category: Naruto
Genre: (sort of), Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Attempt at Humor, Gen, Konoha Village, M/M, Ninja Politics, Wedding Planning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-28
Updated: 2015-01-28
Packaged: 2018-03-09 10:32:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3246371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DuendeJunior/pseuds/DuendeJunior
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shikamaru should have guessed something was bound to happen when Naruto interrupted the meeting and left the Council room in a hurry.</p><p>Or the one where the Hokage announces he wants to marry the Kazekage and Shikamaru is the one who's asked to plan the wedding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	would you recommend an autumn wedding

**Author's Note:**

> I've been writing, rewriting and editing this fic since before Kishimoto announced the manga was coming to an end - it's probably the longest fic I've written in years. I think the only thing I was able to guess was Naruto as the Seventh Hokage, but whatever. It's pretty much the only thing stated after chapter 698 that has any bearing here.
> 
> In the end, it became less "wedding planning shenanigans" and more "the idea of Shikamaru as Naruto's advisor and friend pleases me, also what would the villages think of Gaara and Naruto getting married?", except I only was able to tackle the possible politics involved in such a case from Shikamaru's POV. But either way it was a lot of fun to write this.
> 
> Unbetaed work, all English mistakes are mine. Feel free to warn me if you spot anything too terrible.

  
Shikamaru had known Naruto for a very long time. And during all those years, he had always seen Naruto as someone full of energy; that kind of person who was always doing something - running up and down the street, training, cooking, cleaning his apartment while singing for the whole neighborhood to hear, and never sitting still. Depending on the day, Shikamaru got pretty tired just by _looking_ at him doing things.

But on that specific morning, Shikamaru wasn’t looking at Naruto and thinking “great big ball of energy” - more like “great big ball of restlessness”, judging by the insistent tapping of his foot on the wooden ground. Were it any other time and place, it might have been a soothing sound, but in that moment it only made Shikamaru grow more and more irritated.

And if he felt irritated, who knew what the members of the Konoha Council thought and felt about that blatant sign of impatience.

“Naruto-sama?”, asked Utatane-san, after waiting for five minutes for Naruto’s answer to an inquiry she had presented. “Do you have anywhere else to be right now?”.

The tapping stopped, and Shikamaru silently thanked for that.

“What? No, I don’t…” Naruto cut his own sentence short. “At least, not physically.” He looked at everyone in the room, lips pursed, and straightened his posture on the Hokage chair.

Shikamaru also sat upright in his own chair, just in time to avoid sliding under the table. He needed to have a talk with Naruto later about acquiring less slippery chairs for the council room.

The moment he looked at the Hokage chair was also the moment Naruto decided to stand up and walk away from it in a hurry.

“I’ll be right back! Thanks for reminding me of this, Utatane-san!”, they heard him shouting from the corridor. Shikamaru stared at the door, bewildered by what the hell might have happened to make Naruto exit a council meeting without any explanation at all.

“‘Reminding me of this’? What could I possibly have reminded him of? I said nothing!” Shikamaru knew that Utatane Koharu was looking to him for an explanation - or, at least, a very good apology -, but it was one of those times when Naruto left him with nothing to work.

They also had to have a talk about a raise in wages. Shikamaru felt like he deserved one for how many times Naruto had put him in that kind of position.

“Well, he said he didn’t have to be anywhere physically, so… Maybe there was some important mail he had to send.” He started. “It seems that the Raikage’s brother’s birthday is this week or so, and I think we all remember how they fought together and almost lost their bijuu back on the Fourth War.” Yes, it seemed somewhat plausible even to his ears, even if he didn’t have the faintest idea if the Raikage’s brother remembered Naruto or wanted him to attend his birthday. Or if his birthday was that week or only the next month or would never happen again.

Mitokado-san just huffed and said, “It sounds likely that Naruto would remember something like that just now; after all, you asked him about the last Kage encounter”.

“Well, he could at least have waited until our meeting was over to send whatever it is he needed to send”, said Utatane-san, but she didn’t complain anymore, and Shikamaru thanked his lucky stars that they didn’t press for more details.

Some minutes later, they heard the echo of steps on the corridor and soon enough Naruto appeared on the door. He stopped running just in time not to collide with his own chair.

“I’m sorry, Utatane-san! Sorry, Mitokado-san! Sorry, Shikamaru! It was a really important matter I had to settle, but now I’m back and we can go back to discussing… Whatever we were discussing.”

Utatane-san shook her head in disapproval, but Mitokado-san just adjusted his glasses and asked a different question about the last Kage meeting.

To Shikamaru’s surprise - to everyone’s surprise, he thought -, the rest of the meeting went pretty well, and Naruto even anticipated some inquiries and worries of the elder counsellors. All things considered, it ended up being a very productive afternoon.

**x**

A week later, Naruto called him on his office.

“You remember last week’s meeting with the rest of the council, right?”, Naruto said as soon as Shikamaru reached his desk.

“The one where you left Utatane-san hanging and vanished from the room? If so, then yes.”

Naruto winced at the reminder, and Shikamaru felt a bit guilty about phrasing it that way, but it hadn’t been Naruto who had to make up some excuse on the fly for that _faux pas_ so he shoved it away.

“I answered her when I went back; don’t be so unfair with me.”

“Alright, alright. Do you want to make any other point?”

Naruto took off his Hokage hat - why he insisted on wearing it inside the building, Shikamaru still had no idea - and ran a hand through his hair.

“So… About that day…” Naruto bit his lip. “I might have sent to Gaara of the Sand a message along the lines of ‘ _Marry me?_ ’ with a ‘ _yes_ ’ and a ‘ _no_ ’ options for him to choose.”

… Oh, boy.

Shikamaru mustered an “... Ah” as a sudden need to plop down on the nearest chair began to overtake him.

“This was one of those times you didn’t think through before doing the thing, wasn’t it”, were Shikamaru’s first words after a long silence. He stared at Naruto, who seemed to consider the option to pick up the Hokage hat again just to hide behind it.

Naruto grimaced, and Shikamaru sighed.

“I didn’t mean to cause trouble to Konoha, ‘ttebayo”, said Naruto. “My mouth just ran ahead of my brain; that’s all. Or my hands, in this case.”

 _Did he actually change ever since we fought on the Fourth Ninja War or was it all a trick from Madara_ , Shikamaru wondered. Yes, he’d been a witness for how good Naruto was to the village – both as a war hero and as the Seventh Hokage – for almost ten years, but the moments of “I shouldn’t have talked that much” seemed to be even worse now.

It could an effect of his rank – the higher you are, the mightier the fall, and all that jazz.

“You understand that you, the Hokage of Konoha, proposed marriage to the Kazakage of Suna”, Shikamaru summarized in a slow voice.

“Yeah”, Naruto dragged his reply.

“You understand you two are in positions of equal power.”

“Yeah.”

“And that can be seen by the other Kages as a move to make both Konoha and Suna incredibly powerful and destabilize the current balance between the villages on our alliance.”

“I already said I wasn’t thinking about position!” Naruto complained, his voice rising. “It wasn’t ‘the Hokage proposing a war alliance to salt and burn all other villages to the ground’;” he said in a mocking pompous tone, “it was me, Naruto, asking him, Gaara, if he loved me and wanted to spend the rest of his life with me.”

Shikamaru sighed again, covering his face with his hands. Shino had better be free that afternoon; only a good shogi game and some tea would be capable of taking his mind out of this mess for a while – he needed it sharp and clear to devise some plan to avoid pissing off their allies beyond belief.

“Just one more thing: did Gaara accept it?”

The subsequent moment of silence was longer than Shikamaru had expected.

“… He did.” More silence. “... He answered me today. The same paper, with ‘ _yes_ ’ marked. And circled twice in red.”

Shikamaru thanked the Universe that his friendship with Temari was still strong and steady after all those years; he would need her help more than he’d anticipated. If she knew about that – which was very likely –a similar argument was probably happening at the meeting room on Suna.

“This is too tiresome”, he complained to no one in particular. “I’m not the one who wants to be married; I shouldn’t be the one handling this problem either.”

Naruto looked at him, and a grin started to appear on his face.

“Well, you’re my advisor. Your job is to advise me on such situations”, he teased.

“I promised I would be your counselor and wouldn’t let you make stupid decisions, but this is the kind of potential stupid decision that wasn’t on our original agreement.”

“Maybe it’s time we revise the contract.”

“You wish. It is work enough to help you get out of the hook as it is”, he said with a small smile. Then his face was serious again. “So, I guess you understand what this news might mean for our relationship with the other villages.”

“Yes, I understand.” Naruto rolled his eyes. “You’ll say I should just call the whole thing off, am I right?”

“If you had said Gaara had asked for some time to think about it, maybe I’d advise that.” Shikamaru answered, stressing the “maybe” as much as he could. “But now that you’ve said he accepted it on the spot? No, thanks, I’ll save myself the trouble of picking a fight against Gaara of the Desert.”

Naruto seemed surprised by that. Shikamaru took it as a good signal – a signal that Naruto thought, if only for a moment, about breaking off the engagement if needed, which meant he was thinking about the matter in a serious way. A possible sign Naruto _had_ matured during those years as Hokage.

“And there is… Another problem.”

“… What?” Naruto narrowed his eyes.

“Both elder councils – ours and Suna’s – might object to it on the grounds that you two could be planning on making both villages one. And our citizens might believe it themselves.”

Naruto put his elbows over the table, resting his chin on his hands.

“Isn’t it more or less what we imagine our allies will think?” He asked after a minute.

“Yeah, it is, but this can have worse effects – after all, our villagers were the ones who believed in you and who ultimately chose you to be our leader. An external threat is dangerous, but an internal threat can be fatal.”

Naruto pursed his lips.

“You might be right…” Then he frowned, trying to think of a solution. Shikamaru stood silent on his seat, waiting for whatever suggestion or decision Naruto would reach.

“… We could hold a wedding ceremony in the middle of the road between Suna and Konoha, invite everyone from both villages and give our word we’re not interested on doing anything they suspect we want to do”, Naruto finally said.

Shikamaru stared at him, an eyebrow raised.

“A wedding in the middle of the road.”

“Well, why not. This way no one can say we favored one place or the other.”

“And everyone who lives here or there is invited.”

“… Yes?” Naruto said in a tentative voice.

“… Can you even imagine how much this is going to cost, Naruto?”

“Well, do you have any better ideas?”

“…”. Shikamaru had started to devise a meeting with both councils, and then Naruto and Gaara would announce their wedding and good intentions and etcetera, but that still left the citizens out of the loop. He had to admit that Naruto’s solution, costly as it promised to be, had chances to cover both sides a little better. “I’ll just have you know that if this whole thing goes south, I refuse to take responsibility. Your marriage, your problem.”

“Leave it to me. I’m the Hokage, ‘ttebayo”, Naruto said with a sunny grin. Shikamaru just hoped both Temari _and_ Shino had two or three weekends to spare to help him with solutions to all the ways that could go wrong.

“… Wait.” Naruto said, his smile disappearing.

“What?”

“You didn’t congratulate me.” He began to pout, and Shikamaru wondered if the other Hokages had acted that undignified while dealing with private affairs. He then concluded it was probably better not to doubt that they did. Even Asuma-sensei had had (many) moments like that.

“I’ll congratulate you both when this is over _and_ if no war is declared.”

Naruto’s pout grew, and Shikamaru had to laugh at him.


End file.
